Snatch 2000

Movie Review: Snatch (2000)

Every once in a while, I lower the velvet rope and give regular readers a sample of my premium material. Today’s post previously appeared as a Patreon and SubscribeStar exclusive. If you like it, please consider subscribing. Directed by British maverick Guy Ritchie, Snatch is a frenetic and stylish crime comedy…
February 21, 20241 Comment
Sandman Cancelled

Sandman Canceled by China

Yet another controversy plaguing the scandal-wracked World Science Fiction Society refuses to die as credible allegations of censorship, and a subsequent cover up, swirl in the wake of 2023's World Con in Chengdu. The home of oldpub's once-prestigious Hugo Awards, World Con made its Chinese debut last year in a…
February 9, 20247 Comments
Hellblazer William Paquet

Comics’ Death of a Thousand Cuts

Yesterday's post on the death of American comics elicited its fair share of comments. One reader who decided to offer his two cents ended up contributing gold when he turned out to be an industry veteran. Consider commercial sculptor William Paquet's insider account of the US comics industry's collapse: Heads…
February 8, 202412 Comments
Comics Dead

Who Killed American Comics?

The recent post on who killed rock and roll attracted a lot of notice. It's taken a while to gain traction, but it seems like every day more people are noticing Cultural Ground Zero. As this theory's name implies, the destruction wasn't limited to popular music. Every form of mass…
February 7, 202414 Comments
Late Night HypnoJournoClowns

Late-Night HypnoJourno Clowns

If you were of college age back in the aughts, it was impossible to miss the late-night news parody show craze. Once Comedy Central's saucy puppet shows went off air for the day, the syncopated sounds of smug one-liners punctuated with mindless laughter would filter from dorm rooms, cheap apartments,…
February 6, 202416 Comments
Sam Hyde

Bayou Bomber Contra Sam Hyde

Many of this blog's readers will be aware of comedian Sam Hyde. He's spent his career straddling the line between the rightward edge of the Overton window and the mainstream. He's also something of a Jack of all trades, having crashed a TedX talk, had a now-cancelled show on Adult…
January 29, 20246 Comments
Suburban Hip-Hop

Of Hip-Hop and Corporate Pop

Yesterday, over at the Z Blog, the Z Man took up the thread of this blog's posts on the death of rock music and Cultural Ground Zero. Approaching these related phenomena from an alternate angle, he gleaned some new insights. Not discussed is the culture of the managerial class. The…
January 26, 20246 Comments
Black Pill

The Black Pilling of the Masses

Every once in a while, I like to lower the velvet rope and give regular readers a sample of my premium material. Today's post previously appeared as a Patreon and SubscribeStar exclusive. If you like it, please consider subscribing. My cherished neopatrons and I were discussing how corporate studios' refusal…
January 25, 20248 Comments
nostalgia jukebox

The Nostalgia Jukebox Effect

Nostalgia for pre-Ground Zero pop culture is a subject that comes up a lot on this blog. Pining for the awesome 80s and rad 90s is such a defining feature of Generation Y that this cohort is almost solely responsible for the glut of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles retro action…
January 18, 202416 Comments
Who Killed Rock and Roll

Who Killed Rock and Roll?

Shock rocker Marilyn Manson may have been rather tame and boring in hindsight. But in retrospect, it turns out that he did make at least one true observation. Rock and roll is in fact dead. And it died right around the time he was singing about its demise. If you've…
January 17, 20244 Comments